Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is an American opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1976. BLO is the largest and longest-lived opera company in New England. BLO employs nearly 350 artists and creative professionals annually—vocalists, artisans, stagehands, costumers, and scenic designers—many of whom are members of the Boston community.
Each season, BLO produces four mainstage productions in the Greater-Boston area, one of which is a featured new work. BLO receives partial funding from a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. BLO regularly invests in co-productions with other U.S. companies including New York City Opera, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Houston Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera.
BLO's community work has included participation in the "Egypt in Boston" thematic season that celebrated Egypt at several of Boston’s leading cultural institutions in 1999–2000. In the summer of 2002, BLO produced "Carmen on the Common", a community-outreach initiative of a summer-long education series which culminated in two free, fully staged outdoor performances of Bizet's Carmen on Boston Common. [1] Similar plans were scheduled for Verdi's Aida in the 2005–2006 season, but were cancelled because of insufficient financial support. [2]
The conductor John Balme served as general director from 1979 to 1989. Janice Mancini Del Sesto was general director of BLO from 1992 to 2008, while Stephen Lord was BLO music director from 1991 to 2008. During that time, the company's budget grew from $800,000 (USD) to $6 million (USD). [3] Since 2008, BLO's general and artistic director of BLO is Esther Nelson. [4] In June 2010, BLO announced the appointment of David Angus as the company's next music director, as of the 2010–2011 season, and he continues to lead musically the company. [5]
In 2009, John Conklin joined BLO as Artistic Advisor and in 2012 Julia Noulin-Mérat joined as Associate Producer. As of 2019, John Conklin has set designed 15 productions and Julia Noulin-Mérat has set designed 10 productions.
In 2010, BLO commissioned a work from composer Richard Beaudoin to precede its February 2011 performances of Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis . [6] Beaudoin responded with a 20-minute work for singers and chamber ensemble. [7]
The Dallas Opera is an American opera company located in Dallas, Texas. The company performs at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, one venue of the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The company was founded by American conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Boston Opera Group.
The Glimmerglass Festival is an opera company which was founded in 1975 by Peter Macris and presents an annual season of operas at the Alice Busch Opera Theater on Otsego Lake eight miles (13 km) north of Cooperstown, New York, United States.
The Canadian Opera Company (COC) is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and one of the largest producers of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. For forty years until April 2006, the COC had performed at the O'Keefe Centre.
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is primarily known for his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, a position he held for 40 years (1976–2016). He was formally terminated by the Met from all his positions and affiliations with the company on March 12, 2018 over sexual misconduct allegations that he denies.
Richard Henry Tudor "Harry" Christophers CBE is an English conductor.
John Conklin is a theater designer and teaches in the Department of Design for Stage and Film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Blanche Thebom was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own country she had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City which lasted 22 years. Opera News stated, "An ambitious beauty with a velvety, even-grained dramatic mezzo, Thebom was a natural for opera: she commanded the stage with the elegantly disciplined hauteur of an old-school diva, relishing the opportunity to play femmes du monde such as Marina in Boris Godunov, Herodias and Dalila."
The Baltimore Opera Company (BOC) was an opera company in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., based at the Baltimore Lyric Opera House.
Connecticut Opera was a professional, non-profit, opera company based in Hartford, Connecticut, and a member of OPERA America. The company presented three fully staged opera productions during an annual season. It was founded in 1942 under the directorship of Frank Pandolfi and was the sixth oldest professional opera company in the United States. Pandolfi served as general manager of the company for 32 years and brought most of the major international opera stars of that time to Hartford. The first opera produced was Carmen which opened in the Bushnell Theatre on April 14, 1942, and starred mezzo-soprano Winifred Heidt in the title role. Connecticut Opera went on to feature opera stars such as Plácido Domingo, Beverly Sills, Risë Stevens, and Mary Dunleavy.
The Nashville Opera Association is a professional opera company in Nashville, Tennessee and is a member of OPERA America. The company currently offers four fully staged opera productions and an educational outreach program during an annual season which runs from October through April. Performances are offered at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Downtown Nashville and the Noah Liff Opera Center in the Sylvan Heights section of West Nashville. Designed by architect Earl Swensson, the 26,000-square-foot (2,400 m2) Noah Liff Opera Center houses the company's executive offices, conference facilities, and a rehearsal studio.
Leon Major is a Canadian opera and theatre director. He is the Artistic Director of The Maryland Opera Studio for the University of Maryland, College Park. From 1998-2003 he was Artistic Director of Boston Lyric Opera and from 2003–2007 he was artistic consultant for Opera Cleveland.
Mark Steven Doss is a Grammy Award-winning African-American bass-baritone, specializing in opera, concert and recital. He has performed major roles with many international opera companies, including Milan's La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Brussels' La Monnaie, Canadian Opera Company, and Oper Frankfurt. He divides his time between Toronto, Ontario and Erie, Pennsylvania.
The Philadelphia Grand Opera Company was the name of four different American opera companies active at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century. The last and best known of the four was founded in November 1954 with the merger of the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company and the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company. That company in turn merged with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company in 1975 to form the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Of the three earlier companies, only one lasted beyond one season; a company founded in 1926 which later became associated with the Curtis Institute of Music in 1929. That company closed its doors in 1932 due to financial reasons during the Great Depression.
Say It Ain't So, Joe is a chamber opera in two acts by Curtis K. Hughes inspired by text drawn from the public record of the 2008 United States vice-presidential debate where vice presidential candidate Joe Biden is addressed by Sarah Palin in a similar manner as the famous quote referring to Shoeless Joe Jackson. Commissioned and produced by Guerilla Opera, Say It Ain't So, Joe premiered in Boston on September 19, 2009 at the Boston Conservatory Zack Box Theater.
Julian Gavin is an Australian-born British operatic tenor who has sung leading roles both in the United Kingdom and internationally. His full-length opera recordings include Don José in Carmen and the title roles in Ernani and Don Carlos for Chandos Records.
Guerilla Opera is an opera company in Boston, Massachusetts founded in 2007 specializing in accessible contemporary chamber operas, several of which have been commissioned by the company. As of 2010 its Artistic Directors were Mike Williams and Rudolf Rojahn, its General Manager was Aliana de la Guardia and its director of design and production was Julia Noulin-Mérat. Guerilla Opera performed in the Zack Box Theater at the Boston Conservatory, where it is a resident ensemble. As of 2018 its Artistic Directors are Julia Noulin-Mérat and Aliana de la Guardia. Guerilla Opera performs in Boston.
Myrna Docia Sharlow was an American soprano who had an active performance career in operas and concerts during the 1910s through the 1930s. She began her career in 1912 with the Boston Opera Company and became one of Chicago's more active sopranos from 1915–1920, and again in 1923–1924 and 1926–1927. She sang with several other important American opera companies during her career, including one season at the Metropolitan Opera. She made only a handful of opera appearances in Europe during her career, most notably singing in the English premiere of Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini at Covent Garden in 1914. Her repertoire spanned a wide range from leading dramatic soprano roles to lighter lyric soprano fair and comprimario parts. She even performed a few roles traditionally sung by mezzo-sopranos or contraltos.
James Maddalena is an American baritone who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he created the role of Richard Nixon at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China at Houston. He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records release of the opera in 1987. In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has created two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic. He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec and Stewart Wallace among other American composers.
Stephen Lord is an American conductor, specializing in opera. He resigned from Michigan Opera Theatre and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) in 2019, following an exposé on his behavior.
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